tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78628472015-01-03T12:08:32.846-05:00A Straight Shot of PoliticsA blog from a gentleman of the Liberal political persuasion dedicated to right reason, clear thinking, cogent argument, and the public good. Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.comBlogger370125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-3654041683404285052008-09-26T18:34:00.001-04:002008-09-26T18:36:06.233-04:00Hope AbandonedI cannot continue writing. My brains are scrambled, I miss too many critical things when reading and make a fool of myself, and my moods are too unstable. So farewell, once again, perhaps one day I can return, but I have little hope for it. Move on to other blogs. I will try to round out the politics the day after the election, but then no more, at least for now.Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-69087263828344438402008-09-14T00:50:00.003-04:002008-09-19T11:24:25.009-04:00So Why Does Sarah Palin Make My Skin Crawl?She really is starting to. Some configuration of hints and glimpses in the still pictures and video footage are beginning to have a creepy echo for me of a show about androids on the SciFi Channel. It is, I am certain, wholly irrational, another one of my biochemical blips projected on quite a normal woman who happens to be in politcs. Were she still the Mayor of Wasilla, or even merely the Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com189tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1969593798200479152008-09-13T19:03:00.001-04:002008-09-13T16:26:31.049-04:00Another Unwed MotherAs the Palinmania is slowly settling down and the race is pulling back to a statistical dead heat, I have a brief remark or two in mind about Palin's daughter Bristol and Palin's unborn grandchild. After a lot of foolishness trying to blame the mother for the choices of the daughter, the reasonable consensus has emerged that the Palins were handling whole affair about as well as could be Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-70060244759920783992008-09-12T18:37:00.001-04:002008-09-13T16:28:01.174-04:00Fannie Mae & Freddie MacIn the banking business there is one iron-clad law: no bank, on its own, can pay off all its depositors at the same time. Banking works only when depositors have confidence in the bank’s solvency. There are quite a number of banks out there whose solvency is now burdened by huge amounts of foreclosed loans and deflating house values.Fannie and Freddie held the bulk of these loans. If they fell doJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-14658300988296668032008-09-12T13:54:00.011-04:002008-09-13T16:30:17.394-04:00Mesmerized by Global WarmingMy friend the Anchoress now also writes columns under her own name, Elizabeth Scalia, over at Pajamas Media. Her latest is titled: Psychologists Want to Purge Your Brain of Un-Green Thoughts. In it she says this:These experts have made the staggering observation that negative feedback breeds a bit of spite; if you tell people they are pigs who are killing the earth, people will raise an Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-81275784912540405112008-09-12T11:33:00.005-04:002008-09-13T16:32:56.750-04:00The Historic Candidacy, The Histrionic ShmucksLet's cut to the chase:The Republican and “Independent” worthies who spoke at their convention–Joe Lieberman, Fred Thompson, Rudi Guliani, Sarah Palin and John McCain–are supposed to be leaders. The same is true of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. Leaders are supposed to set standards and examples. They are supposed to be the best of what our politics has to offer, notJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-88510244802228646452008-09-12T10:47:00.002-04:002008-09-12T11:27:45.839-04:00Kill The Fatted CalfOkay, I'm back. It's been a long dark road, but my life is stabilized; I have the cutest little laptop you have ever seen; I am on Social Security Disability, Medicare, and Medicaid; I supplement this with paid appearances at committee meetings to provide "mental health consumer input". So I like to think of myself as a "professional manic depressive"--I get to use the politically incorrect Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-17747540625906951632007-07-20T12:10:00.001-04:002007-07-20T12:25:33.161-04:00I Smell BloodThis is to announce that I have moved operations to a new blog: The Empty Sky. I will not be posting on politics there. Until a major change comes, there is really no more to say about politics.But I will add one footnote. As of today, there is a very good chance that my greatest wish will come true. The 30% of this country for whom George W. Bush can do no wrong, and, particularly, the so-calledJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1148922993200115692006-05-29T12:56:00.000-04:002006-05-29T14:17:42.173-04:00Seeking The Death PracticeSometime back I wrote that the state of our country and the world so discouraged me that, when and if it ever was offered, I would seek to learn the Buddhist practice of learning how to die carefully, deliberately, and consciously.The opportunity has arisen and I am preparing to go when June commences. I am over 50 and I have never cared much for material goods beyond immediate need or temporary Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145744611266958202006-05-14T06:06:00.000-04:002006-05-14T08:53:11.816-04:00The Politics That Cut One's Heart OutI'm quite peacefully partisan. This does not mean that I am not partisanly pugnatious. I am. But I am at peace with myself about my partisanship. If I were not, I could not be so forthright here and elsewhere.Besides my particular political goals and beliefs, I have the overarching viewpoint that the point of politics is policy--the things that can be done by government. In general, a partisan isJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1146375552571288512006-05-13T21:52:00.000-04:002006-05-13T23:30:32.010-04:00A Wilderness Of MirrorsI started this as another late night post from a brain too wound up to sleep. And a brain prone to lucid despair. The weight of writing it was too much for me then. But I am finishing it rested, albeit with a caffine starvation headache. No, I'm not doing anything so silly as "cutting back on my coffee", I simply got too involved with another project today to notice that I hadn't had any coffee Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1147424401904988732006-05-12T04:19:00.000-04:002006-05-12T05:00:02.030-04:00Thanking The ReadersYou deserve it. I have watched my counter numbers still rise without my having given any reason for you to look in here for far too long. Writing was simply impossible. I had taken on a job which demanded eight solid hours of constant intellectual work on a computer and allowed me to do absolutely nothing else. I don't know if you have ever done such a thing. I never did by choice, even whenJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145778440002340872006-04-23T02:59:00.000-04:002006-04-23T03:47:20.923-04:00Where Are The Springs of Yesteryear?One of the peculiar things about my mental health condition and, maybe, about the medications which treat it, is the totally flat affect I now feel towards weather. In my imagination and memory I can still see and feel my heart lift on brilliant sunny days in October, where the sky was an impossible blue and the leaves were red and gold; or equally on windy and rainy days in April, with each of Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1145684776265755962006-04-22T01:18:00.000-04:002006-04-22T01:46:16.420-04:00The Nagging Minutes of the Earliest HourThis is a late night cry in the wilderness. A brain too old, too stressed, and too weary is fighting back with insomnia. The brutality, banality, and hypocracy of the world has triumphed for the moment over hope. For the moment only [I think!] and due to having to sustain total concentration, when I no longer have mental margin, for 8 solid hours, I have lost reason to care about my fellow human Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1144938972810247942006-04-13T09:44:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:46:48.346-04:00Checking In Of A Thursday MorningI have been under the gun. My very secret, hush-hush, job has started up again--the one with a certain company who recently made a very big boo-boo, kept some of their business so secret that they didn't even know about it, and made a very embarrassing splash in the national news. It takes all my evenings, twenty hours worth of work piled on top of the seventeen I have been averaging at my first Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1144498345912559592006-04-08T06:45:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:45:15.976-04:00I Appear To Have Created An Immense Uproar......over on the blog All Things Beautiful. To the point where the hostess over there, Alexandra Von Maltzen, decided to waste an incredible amount of her own bandwidth quoting from these humble pages and excoriating them. What a pity. I have obviously worn out my welcome, so I won't bother to reply over there. You can go and read it all if you have the time.If you do, you can tell her for me that Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143986854817356942006-04-02T09:59:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:42:57.526-04:00The Faces Of Worry And PainAs an inveterate watcher, I observe very few truly happy people over the age of twenty-five. Hot blood, hormones, and a new day practically force some happiness on you in your youngest adulthood. The new days are still so truly new. But nearly every other face I see is distorted with some fantasy of worry, annoyance, or discomfort--never here, never now, never actually prepared to enjoy a new dayJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143889043946251362006-04-01T04:44:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:42:09.850-04:00And The Evening's SmorgasboardIn my state there is a wonderful, waistline bulging, restaurant chain called Der Dutchman. The theme, and the cooking is Amish, of which we have a considerable number in Ohio. So park your buggy, tuck your knapkin in your shirt like a bib, and sit down to Chicken and Egg Noodles, Ham with sweetened apples, slow simmered green beans, fluffy mashed potatoes, and pecan pie:[On Conservative TribalismJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143806452172915792006-03-31T06:42:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:41:24.163-04:00Welcome To The Breakfast BarI have been a little tangled up by my usual Spring job. It takes my four evening hours and turns my brain to oatmeal. I simply do not have the headspace for sustained proactive thinking, so here are some samples of my latest reactive thinking:[On Buddhist Ethics]Everybody innately knows the difference between right and wrongIf so, why do we condemn parents for failing to teach their children the Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1143044156207185132006-03-26T19:37:00.000-05:002006-04-13T10:40:44.916-04:00Of Fashion And Meta-FashionI was sitting in the lobby of my office building on my break. I noticed a trim, attractive woman of about thirty-five walk by. She had one of those round faces with a wide naturally smiling mouth, that are more attractive for a little maturity. Not like the high cheekbones and regular features that remain beautiful, in a different way, in every decade, up to late old age. But, rather, a glowing Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142643744664182592006-03-25T16:25:00.000-05:002006-04-01T12:16:36.980-05:00With A Little Help From My FriendsI have been a little lax in posting. There is a mental side to convalescence from surgery which is far more intractable than the physical side, which I'm pleased to say, has proceeded very well. But the depression, combined with the fact that virtually no one in the world seems to have anything new to say about anything, and nothing significant has happened that requires anyone to say something Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142793830255933662006-03-19T12:07:00.000-05:002006-04-01T12:15:20.070-05:00Okay, Here We Go AgainAnother round of my good friends on the right making damn fools of themselves, this time over Operation Swarmer. It started with good ol' Baroness Alexandra, who is developing quite a rep as a well-illustrated linkfest for every right-wing tempest in a teapot which comes along.As always, I feel a little guilty burdening you with this, since it appears somewhere else, but by God if I have to spendJoseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142729226974430922006-03-18T18:07:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:51:41.376-05:00The Depressive Feedback LoopAs I'm sure you have guessed if you have stopped by lately, I am in the depressive phase of my bipolar cycle, and in one which the medications are having less effect than usual moderating. I have been so now for more than a week. I strongly suspect that bipolarity is an abnormality in some kind of natural biological feedback mechanism. For the effect of my recent gallbladder operation appears to Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142551393161198072006-03-16T17:01:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:50:59.810-05:00So Now What Do I Say?I am sitting staring at my CRT screen wondering what to say next. The United States and Israel were the only two serious opponents to the idea of the United Nations creating a permanent human rights body. The only ones. A couple of tiny Pacific archipelagoes fell into line, probably because the United States is absolutely the only one who pays any attention to them, attention in the form of Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7862847.post-1142353777597381862006-03-14T10:16:00.000-05:002006-03-20T06:50:22.106-05:00Nausea, Diarrhea, Ennui, DisgustOver the past few days I have been forced to confront how chronically ill I really am. There is a period in after-surgical convalescence when you no longer are in obvious pain, but when the subtle disorder of a violent intrusion into your body lays on you like a lead weight.In someone such as myself--bipolar, hyperlipidemic, hypothyroid--whose consciousness is constantly battered with a Joseph Marshallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08223619214228091798noreply@blogger.com2